Intel To Launch New 14nm Atom Products In 2014

Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, told an audience a few days ago that the world's biggest semiconductor company will be resetting its Atom roadmap because it was "inadequate" and will focus on making the next generation as crucial as the first Pentium or Centrino products.

EETimes reports that Intel will launch a new Atom core called Airmont as early as 2014 - almost certainly with the Tri-gate FinFet technology - at the same time that the technology is rolled out on its mainstream computer chip range.

Intel will launch a Medfield 32nm processor next year for smartphones and tablets before switching to Silvermont and a 22nm process a year later and finally Airmont by 2014; Otellini says that the "acceleration" would create a "very compelling road map [that] doubles the pace of Moore's Law".

In another show of how important Atom is going to be in the future, Intel has decided to bring the average TDP of its notebook chips down to 15w from 40w while SoC designs average TDP would rise ten fold from one Watt to 10W.

This means that Atom will grow a fairly straightforward design to one more complex and likely to cover a much larger remit, not unlike what Centrino achieved a few years ago with the rise in transistor count, which explains the jump in the expected TDP.

Earlier this year, IBM announced that they will be developing physical and processor IP to produce silicon using a 14nm process although neither had confirmed when the first products using the technology would be out.